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Brook Trout in Massachusetts:

PhotosbyBillByrne

A Troubled History, A Hopeful Futureby Kathleen Campbell

Brook trout are one o the most beauti-ul and beloved sh in the Eastern UnitedStates. In Massachusetts, anglers prizeopportunities to catch brookies in theBerkshires and the rare salters on theCape.Brooktroutsurviveinonlythecold-

est and cleanest water, and they serveas indicators o the health o the riversand streams they inhabit. As such, brooktrout oten act as the canary in the coalmine to signal the excellent health o awaterway or alert us to potential waterquality problems.

Brook trout populations have been indecline in Massachusetts over the pastseveral hundred years, largely due topressures associated with urbanizationand other development. The Massachu-setts Division o Fisheries and Wildlieis actively working with ederal andstate partners, as well as conservationorganizations such as Trout Unlimited,to restore the brookie throughout itshistoric Eastern range.

Origins o the EasternBrook Trout Joint VentureIn 2002, the Sport Fishing and Boating

Partnership Council recommended thedevelopment o a collaborative program

to address aquatic restoration on a re-gional scale. In response, the U.S. Fish &Wildlie Service and the International As-sociation o Fish & Wildlie Agencies tookthe lead in establishing the National FishHabitat Initiative (NFHI). This program ismodeled on the highly successul NorthAmerican Waterowl Management Plan,a partnership program implemented inthe 1980s to restore and protect millionso acres o wetland breeding areas orwaterowl.

The National Fish Habitat Initiativeis intended to oster targeted, regionalpartnerships that draw on local knowl-edge and current scientic inormationto restore and protect aquatic habitatsand reverse the decline o sh species.

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The Eastern Brook Trout Joint Ventureis the rst pilot project to be conductedunder the NFHI.

This collaborative, nonregulatoryprogram aims to assess the status othe eastern brook trout throughout itsnative range; identiy local and regionalthreats to populations; develop statebased conservation strategies; andtrack and quantiy progress and results.The Joint Venture is also conducting anextensive public outreach and educationcampaign.

TheMassachusettsDivisionoFisheriesand Wildlie is the primary participanton behal o the Commonwealth. MassWildlie is partnering with

the ollowing members o theJoint Venture: Fish and wildlie agencies

rom 16 other states Federal entities including

the U.S. Geological Survey,U.S.Forest Service, U.S. Fish &Wildlie Service National ParkService and Oce o SuraceMining

Conservation organiza-

tions including the Interna-tional Association o Fish &Wildlie Agencies, Trout Un-limited, Izaak Walton Leagueo America, Trust or PublicLand, and The Nature Con-servancy

Academic institutionsincluding the ConservationManagement Institute at Vir-ginia Tech, and James Madi-son University

Brook trout (acing page)havebeenthenativeavoriteo Yankee sport men ormore than two centuries,but landclearing and millconstruction in the 18th and19th centuries, ollowed by

the ood control operationsand road/housing develop-ment o the 20th century,have taken a heavy toll onthe coldwater habitats thatbrook trout require in orderto thrive.

Assessing Brook Trout Populations

As noted above, the rst stage o theEastern Brook Trout Joint Venture isthe assessment o brook trout popula-tions throughout their historical range.Brookies once thrived in most o the

waters throughout Massachusetts. Inorder to determine their current status,the Joint Ventures Assessment Teamworked with Todd Richards and otherbiologists at the Massachusetts Divi-sion o Fisheries and Wildlie to collectexisting data on brook trout populationsat the subwatershed level. (While subwatersheds vary in size, they typicallycontain 25 to 75 miles o streams and

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Status of Brook Trout in MassachusettsNumber Percentage

Brook Trout Classifcations o Subwatersheds oSubwatersheds

Intact (>90% habitat occupied) 1

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The Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture the frst pilot project o the groundbreakingNational Fish Habitat Initiative produced this map to illustrate the current statuso the brook trout in Massachusetts in relation to its historical range. Data remainsincomplete in some areas (particularly south o Boston to Cape Cod) and is limited

to simply "present/abscent" in more than 10% o the subwatersheds involved, butit certainly provides a starting point or restoration. Brook trout require clean, cold,well oxygenated water to survive; as a result they have disappeared rom manywaters that have been ragmented by dams and culverts (which act as barriers thatisolate populations and prevent the fsh rom reaching spawning or summer reugesites) or damaged by heavy sedimentation, various pollutants, or habitat alterationswhich have increased water temperature beyond what the species can tolerate.

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local threats to wild, selreproducingbrook trout and their habitat. Threatswere identied as high, medium or low;the table below lists the top ve highor mediumlevel threats to brook troutsubwatersheds in Massachusetts. Notethat the gures do not add up to 100%because zero, one, or multiple threatsmay exist in each subwatershed.

Massachusetts rivers and streams areheavily burdened by dams and roads.Regionalexpertsidentieddamragmen-tation as a high or medium disturbancein 65% o all subwatersheds where brooktrout status is known. Dams inundatehabitat and increase water temperaturesbyslowingdownfowingwaterandexpos-ing it to the sun.

as the second and third most commondisturbances to brook trout habitat. Inaddition, streamside (riparian) and instream habitat degradation were listedas actors in over 50% o the statesbrook trout subwatersheds where dataisavailable.Instreamhabitatlossesotenresult rom gravel mining, food controlmanipulation and loss o trees.

Moving Forward:Conservation and

Restoration OpportunitiesDespite their sensitivity to declines in

water quality, brook trout have managedto persist in many headwater streamsin Massachusetts and throughout theeastern United States, and biologists are

Principal Threats to Brook Trout in MassachusettsNumber Percentage

Disturbances (High or Medium) o Subwatersheds o Subwatersheds

Dam Inundation/Fragmentation 106 65%

Stream Fragmentation (Roads) 100 61%

Sedimentation (Roads) 96 59%

Riparian Habitat 93 57%Instream Habitat 91 56%

Dams and culverts oten orm barriersto sh movement, eectively cuttingstreamsintobiological ragments. Small,isolated populations o brook trout with-out connection to a larger populationrunthe risk o vanishing over time as theysuccumb to natural food and droughtcycles. Because these ragmented popu-lations are isolated rom one another, ia population disappears, it cannot bereestablished by other sh rom down-stream. Removingorbreachingunneces-sary dams can restore a biological con-nection between isolated populations,reduce summer water temperatures andreestablish lost stream habitat. Allowingthe water to fow ree again allows it (es-

pecially during the spring melt) to scourand remove mud and other sedimentsthat accumulate behind obstructionsand reduce brook trout spawning andeeding habitat.

Regional experts ranked stream rag-mentationandsedimentation romroads

optimisticthathabitatprotectionandres-toration . Many opportunities currentlyexist or the restoration o brook trouthabitat. As Todd Richards, MassWildieAquatic Biologist, observes: "While theresults o the Joint Venture report aresobering, we are already pursuing manyopportunities or conservation o ourremaining highquality habitat, as wellas restoration o impaired streams. Ourcollective challenge is to protect the bestremaining habitat and restore the rest."

The Massachusetts Division o Fisher-ies and Wildlie is currently working withother state and ederal agencies and themembers o the Eastern Brook TroutJoint Venture to identiy conservation

priorities. For example, replacing poorlydesignedculvertsandremovingolddamsthat block sh movement can reconnectragmented habitat and strengthen orextend brook trout populations down-stream. Instituting best managementpractices to reduce sedimentation rom

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Photosby

BrianGraber/Riverways

roadscangreatlyreducerunointobrooktrout streams. Protection o remaininghigh quality brook trout habitat canensure that brook trout populations anddrinking water quality remain healthyinto the uture.

Massachusetts citizens who enjoy sh-ing or recreating can play a signicantrole in advancing brook trout restorationeorts in the Commonwealth. By voicingsupportortheseconservationprogramsand getting involved in restoration op-portunities in their local communities,citizens can help guarantee longtermsupport or these eorts. Collective e-orts to restore the brook trout will en-

able us to protect human health, assurecleanandsustainablewatersupplies,andpreserve our quality o lie or genera-tions to come.

Results are striking and rapid when anobsoletedamsuchasthisone(inset)onYokum Brook in Becket is taken downto restore reeowing habitat .

Sections o this article were drawn rom

the report Eastern Brook Trout: Status andThreats, which was produced by Trout Unlim-ited in coordination with the Eastern BrookTrout Joint Venture. Rangewide inormationand details on brook trout restoration oppor-tunities are available at www.brookie.org.

The maps and data in the report are basedon Distribution, Status, and Perturbations toBrook Trout within the Eastern United States,a technical report by the Joint Ventures as-sessment team that will be published later in2006. This frstoitskind assessment paintsa comprehensive picture o the condition obrook trout populations across their nativerange rom Ohio to Maine to Georgia. Thetechnicalreportcategorizesavarietyothreatsto brook trout and their habitat and helps toidentiy restoration and protection priorities.Using satellite imageryandstatistical analysis,the report predicts the status o brook trout inareas that lack population data and identifes

dierent levels o environmental stress thatbrook trout are able to tolerate beore theyare likely to disappear.

Kathleen Campbell is the Press Secretaryin Trout Unlimiteds National Ofce.

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